P4 or Centrino

LiveLong · Post by **LiveLong** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 5:36 pm

I am about to replace my laptop, and would like to know what would be the best for audio,

A Centrino 1.8 or so, or a desktop replacement P4 3.4

I am interested in performance more than battery life and weight.

Thanks!

phunktion · Post by **phunktion** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 6:00 pm

centrino for sure.

1.8 centrino is about equivilant to a p4 3.2 yet runs cooler and longer battery life.

P4s in laptops are a bad idea. i know ppl whos laptops crash all the time because of heat problems

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 6:50 pm

Centrino hands down, way better battery life if nothing else....

RobStrobe · Post by **RobStrobe** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 6:53 pm

phunktion wrote:centrino for sure.

1.8 centrino is about equivilant to a p4 3.2 yet runs cooler and longer battery life.

P4s in laptops are a bad idea. i know ppl whos laptops crash all the time because of heat problems

DEFINITLY CENTRINO!!!!...type under search "PERFORMANCE TEST"...and you will find a test and you can easily compare some models and the processors...

and i have opened a thread called toshiba m60-135 some guys gave very nice advises for a couple of models...

i can just advise you, not to buy a SONY!!!!sony is completly FUCKED UP!!!

RobStrobe · Post by **RobStrobe** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 6:54 pm

Tarekith wrote:Centrino hands down, way better battery life if nothing else....

what do you mean??no centrino or yes centrino??

excuse my bad english

louZ · Post by **louZ** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 7:45 pm

RobStrobe wrote:
Tarekith wrote:Centrino hands down, way better battery life if nothing else....

what do you mean??no centrino or yes centrino??

excuse my bad english

he means yes centrino

Freakybeatz · Post by **Freakybeatz** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 9:26 pm

I think the first thing you should ask is whats your budget...???

That makes a big difference to your choice here.

This is especially true if you arent bothered about battery life or weight!

Centrino is fabulous for batterylife, portability, cool running and performance up to a point. but you pay for the privelage.

A P4 mobile runs hotter, sucks the battery dry and adds weight to the notebook, but is considerably cheaper.

If its a "desktop replacement" you are after, a centrino might be overkill.

Bear in mind the whole performance issue is debatable in regards software you are running and we all know clock speeds arent the be all and end all for real world performance.

I recently bought a P4 mobile 3.2ghz machine for a colleague that wiped the floor witha centrino machine, but running benchmark tests the centrino came out tops...go figure!

It comes down to this:

You want portable...go centrino..

You want a desk based wall wart laptop, consider a P4 or AMD

cheers

Freakybeatz

subterFUSE · Post by **subterFUSE** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 9:44 pm

P4s in laptops are a bad idea. i know ppl whos laptops crash all the time because of heat problems

I have a P4 3.4 GHz laptop, and it works beautifully. That said, I would still recommend most people consider the Pentium M first.

The reason to get a Pentium 4 has little to do with price and CPU power. It has to do with what components you want inside?

A Pentium 4 box will usually be a larger case that can hold more stuff inside... like 2 hard drives instead of 1, and 2 CD-ROM / DVD drives.

I have a Pentium 4 I just bought in July. I love it. Here's the specs:

Pentium 4 3.4 GHz HT (650 series) 2 MB L2 cache
2048 RAM
dual 80 gig SATA 5400rpm hard drives in RAID 0
256 MB graphics (ATI X800)
17" WSXGA+ wide glassview screen
DVD-R/RW dual layer with LightScribe

It runs Ableton quite well, although a Pentium M laptop usually gets better results in the performance test.

But, you won't find many Pentium M laptops offering dual hard drives, RAID, or dual CD/DVD drives. This may be unimportant to you, though.

So... if you want a big laptop that has dual drives, a Pentium 4 could be right for you. If you just want a well priced laptop that handles Ableton well, then I suggest the Pentium M. You can get a well equiped Pentium M laptop for $1400 or even less. If you want extra options like more RAM, bigger screen, etc... the price will go up... but you shouldn't have to pay more than $2000 for a Pentium M.

shredded · Post by **shredded** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 9:54 pm

Yeah, the Centrino's, it seems, have a better CPU score on the Ableton test, but many other tests using other software, audio and graphic, have differing results from program to program. I tend to think p4's are a little heavier and and can handle deeper use. The Centrino's are really designed for websurfing, I don't care what antone says. Most people want a laptop so they can blog and chat at the coffeeshop or write papers on the train. Serious musicians and graphic artists are gonna have a dual processor box in the studio or house. The Centrinos are good though, and if you know how to manage your machine, mix down your tracks, freeze, etc. you will be able to do pretty much anything you want. Personally, I'm used to working with 4 tracks so I always mix my stuff down cuz that's what I'm used to doing for so long. Besides, I can only focus on so many tracks at once anyways, As far as using Live for mixing a Centrino would be your best bet, as it's lighter and portable with longer battery life and less heat. If you are into writing tracks and doing extensive FX's and shit, I don't think anyone works the same way so there is no easy way to determine what machine is better. Remember that P4's have hyperthreading which is supposedly better for running multiple programs simultaneously (i.e. editor and sequencer). Everybody i ask has a different opinion, from P4 to Centrino to AMD to MAC. Bottom line: the technology is so advanced in notebooks these days that it really doesn't matter. I doubt you will notice much difference in actual application and use of the machine; anything you get will be able to do what you want nowadays.

sarcazm · Post by **sarcazm** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 12:54 am

My Centrino 2.0 runs Live perfectly and has done for a year so far.

To counter an earlier posters comments about extra HD, DVD, etc, it also has a spare port which I use for an extra battery (4-5 hours now with all power saving features off). I would get another HD but HP only has 5400 speed for their removeable drive.

The only drawback to it is the weight! I've gone through two Samsonite straps on one of their laptop bags so far! However, a comparable P4 will probably have that weight problem as well.

treysmith · Post by **treysmith** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 3:00 am

Have a top of the line Sony Vaio... Unfortunately i've had the motherboard replaced twice in 6 months from buying it. When it works right, it's a dream though!

neomodo · Post by **neomodo** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 3:02 am

it does too matter

some are better than others for specific things.. and as RObStrobe says - don't get a Sony... they're overhyped fragile little things - they always breakand if you have ever tried to download drivers from the sony site you know what a royal pain in the ass it is.

I went through this same question a couple of weeks ago - my conclusion: Dump the Tecra 2.0 ghz P4 M for the Satellite Pro M10 1.5 Centrino. You'll have to wait until later this week to hear my conclusion...

LiveLong · Post by **LiveLong** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 3:04 am

Thanks to all of you for all the info!

Now I have a satellite s-701, 1.8 p-4 1600x1200. There is a hardware problem with the graphics card or something. I look at the 17" Toshiba

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cmo ... id=1291021

or the Asus

http://usa.asus.com/products/notebook/nbindex.htm

Kind of the same....

Thanks again

forge · Post by **forge** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 3:40 am

personally, my laptop is just an easily transportable desktop because I dont tend to sit at the beach to work and audio interfaces either need their own power or make the battery life issuse redundant and using the onboard sound card is not ususally a pleasant experience both for sound and latency even with asio4all.

If you do want the battery life and go the way of the centrino, get one with a decnt on board (with headphones) card or you will be wasting your money because you wont use it for music on the move.

subterFUSE · Post by **subterFUSE** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 12:02 pm

That Toshiba is overpriced for what you are getting.

I paid exactly $3,000 for my laptop, and it's got a higher resolution screen (1680 x 1050), 2 gigs of RAM, a 256 MB graphics card, 2 SATA hard drives in RAID 0 for a total of 160 GB, and a dual-layer DVD burner with LightScribe (burns labels on DVDs).

If you buy a name brand like Toshiba, Sony or IBM... you are just giving money away for a nameplate on the case.

You could get a laptop with the close to the same specs as that Toshiba for about $800 less, easily.

I like Asus better.